Best Practices for Introductory Computer Science Valerie Barr, Jessica Bayliss, Monisha Pulimood, Susan Rodger, Ursula Wolz

What’s Wrong? Taulbee Survey: –approximately 50% fewer students entered computer science (CS) in Fall of 2007 compared to Fall of 2000 – BS degree production down again CS major has a 30-40% attrition rate Overall, education has problems 12 th Graders Views of School [U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. 2000]

What Can Help? Choosing the Right Tools Peers, Teams, Expertise, Ownership What makes a “good” Computer Science problem? Don’t Dumb it Down – But They Can! Which of these things have we done and how have we done them at each of our schools?

DUKE UNIVERSITY Peer Led Team Learning Students solve problems related to course In small groups of size 4 to 8 Led by Student peer leader Non-majors course (Alice) and CS 1(Java) Benefits to Undergraduate Students Grades, lower drop rates, social groups, understanding Benefits to Peer Leaders Confidence, leadership, better understanding material

RIT: Game Software Development 1-3 Initially a MS funded grant to bring context into a CS introductory sequence, now its own sequence GDD BS has around 20% women, while CS is around 6% First year retention ranges from 85-95% while CS retention is lower at around 65-75% Multiple languages learned early: First course Java Second and third courses C# Collaboration: Learned early In class exercises Group critiques and analysis Show and tell Problems are motivated by real game development issues Students claim that the courses are harder than alternatives

Union College 5 theme-based intro courses (plus one for engineers), partially supported by NSF CPATH grant, 1 major & 3 minor options Language relevant for the theme (Python, C) All “studio-style”, combining lecture and hands-on, pair work in class, individual homework Assignments based on theme, problems are relevant to students Interest in the theme = motivation to overcome “hard” parts Outcome – 85 intro students per year from across all disciplines (more with intro for engineers)

The College of New Jersey Traditional track to CS 3: Foundational Programming followed by Data Structures Almost entirely white male Multimedia track to CS 3 (2 year old curriculum): Interactive Media Computing Socially Responsible Problems 30% female (College is 52% female), ethnic diversity matches College). Scratch in first week to front load programming (like Harvard), followed by Processing for media design emphasis Focus on collaborative support for individual contributions to large project. “Remixing” rather than “lock step” correct solution to single problem. Wikis for public submission of homework, reflective writing, project collaboration.

CS 3 - software engineering and new language (C++) Collaboration Semester-long team projects Writing assignments Group assignments and discussions Formal and informal presentations with peer feedback The College of New Jersey Types of problems Challenging Socially relevant Interdisciplinary Tools Wiki, Trac, CVS / SVN

Questions??? Choosing the Right Tools Peers, Teams, Expertise, Ownership What makes a “good” Computer Science problem? Don’t Dumb it Down – But They Can!